Geeps

Last Sunday one of my GP7's hit the floor. No cosmetic damage, but now it's not running right. Initially when power is applied the lights come on nice and bright, but when the loco starts moving the lights dim and it slows down to a stop. Reversing directions creates the same problem. This happens in DC or DCC.

I've had the issue before and reseating the decoder board fixed it. This time, no joy. So I ordered a decoder board from Bachmann, and while I was looking the decoder board up I found one on sale through Newegg for about the same amount as the decoder. So of course I ordered them both.

The decoder came in yesterday and I installed it this morning, but I am still having the same problem with it. I disassembled it and checked the gears, there was a bit of fuzz in the worms so I cleaned everything up and reassembled it. No joy, still the same problem.

So today the new unit is supposed to be here and the old one will go out to Bachmann for repairs.

Developments

When last we spoke of J class locomotives and DCC I had failed in my attempts to chip N&W 601, a locomotive that you may recall I had purchased in a non-running condition with wiring issues. As you may also recall I attempted to repair those wiring issues with a complete point to point rewire (using the color coded wiring from a used decoder), which I now actually believe was successful but did not work out the way I had planned.

I did order the Bachmann wiring harness, and it came in last month. I took the locomotive, the new harness, and the decoder that had been installed, uninstalled, reinstalled and once again uninstalled with me to a friends house yesterday. He has a Digitrax system connected to a laptop with JMRI software installed, which I hoped would be useful in diagnosing the problems with the install.

Using his work bench (since mine is currently in the living room until its new home can be prepared) the new wiring harness was prepared and installed. Once installed and tested the decoder installation was started once more on the PCB in the tender.

Right away I ran into the issue of finding one of the pads burned off of the PCB. Not to worry, there was still plenty of copper left on the underside of the board, which was actually better because the trace was connected on the underside anyway. To access this I pulled the board off the tender...and discovered the copper contacting strips, which were supposed to be contacting the trucks...weren't.

Not to worry once more, I tinned the truck contacts and prepped them to have the PCB wiring connected to them directly in the same manner that the PRR K4 wiring is done (which I believe to be a better arrangement even though it makes the trucks, for all intents and purposes, non-removable; in itself once again not an issue since I don't plan on having to remove the trucks for any reason, and if they do have to be removed they can be desoldered). I then installed the decoder, connected the trucks, connected the loco harness and reassembled the tender.

When the loco was placed on the programming track the Digitrax/JMRI computer was able to find the decoder right away and determine its programming parameters. The small hand held controller I had used in troubleshooting had programmed the loco with number 531, not 601, and even though I attempted to change that address with the MRC controller it obviously was not effective (which explains why the loco would not work with the MRC but would with the small handheld). Once that was fixed the loco was put on the layout...and it runs beautifully.

I ran a couple of laps on his layout but since he uses Atlas C55 track and apparently all of my cars have pizza cutter wheels I was not able to run it with a consist. It does however start and stop smoothly, it responds well to the throttle and the lights work as they are supposed to. He was amazed that such performance could be had from a Bachmann (he is one of those who judge the B-mann by their hideously inferior white box models and not by their vastly improved Spectrum line).

Since my own layout is in disarray at the moment I am unable to run it with my MRC system, but I have no reason to believe it won't perform just as well at home as it did away. And now I have two N&W J class locomotives to play with (and I can double-head them if I want to!), with a slew of cars in the paint shop to split between them.

And speaking of cars in the paint shop, the Erie cars came back yesterday as well, and they are beautiful. I need to get trucks and couplers for them, and a handful of weights as well, and then they will be ready to go on the layout. Pictures, as promised, when available. I might, however, need to get a set of the ConCor PA1/PB1 locomotives in the matching Erie paint to go with them now since the PA1 I have right now is in the blue and yellow livery instead of the green and cream (and I don't have a B unit for it).

The only sad part of the day was discovering that one of my B-mann GP7's is once again acting up,  same issue as before with the dimming lights and slowing to a stop. This time the tab bending trick didn't work, so it may be time to replace that decoder board.

And that's the news from the Path Valley Railroad.